Harris Tells Radio Host Filibuster Should End for Abortion Rights
MADISON, Wis. — Vice President Kamala Harris made headlines on Tuesday by telling a Wisconsin Public Radio host she supports eliminating the Senate filibuster in order to codify abortion rights across the nation.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” Harris said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” program.
“[That would] get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do,” Harris said.
That statement, in response to a question from host Kate Archer Kent, is the most detailed she’s made to date as she travels the country vowing to restore abortion rights if she is elected in November.
On rally stage after rally stage, Harris has repeatedly said she would sign legislation passed by Congress to restore Roe v. Wade, which enabled women in every state to get abortion care until the Supreme Court overturned it with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022.
Democrats on every tier of the 2024 ballot have made reproductive rights a central plank of their campaigns and voters in 10 states will vote on proposed amendments to their state constitutions to enshrine their rights to abortion care.
Harris herself has repeatedly slammed her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, for appointing the three conservative justices who made overturning Roe possible.
Meanwhile her campaign has cast a spotlight on the stories of women whose health was threatened and who in some cases died because they could not receive the reproductive care they needed in a timely fashion.
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to insist that overturning Roe was what “everybody wanted” and insists the issue should be left up to the states.
Harris has long expressed the view she believes the filibuster — typically a political maneuver intended to prolong debate and prevent a decision on proposed legislation — should be done away with when it comes to critical legislation.
For instance, during her presidential campaign in 2020, she proposed eliminating the 60-vote filibuster rule to pass climate change legislation.
At present the only way to escape from the filibuster is Senate Rule XXII, known as the cloture rule, which enables senators to end a filibuster on any debatable matter the chamber is considering.
Sixteen senators can initiate this process by presenting a motion to end the debate. In most circumstances, the Senate does not vote on this cloture motion until the second day of session after the motion is made. Then it requires the votes of at least three-fifths of all senators (normally 60 votes) to invoke cloture.
After the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs, President Joe Biden said the Senate should carve out an exception to the 60-vote filibuster rule to codify abortion rights, but his suggestion was thwarted by the opposition of two key senators, Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.
On Tuesday, Manchin, who is retiring from the Senate this year, said he still opposes such a move.
“I have been consistent on the importance of protecting the 60-vote threshold, which we call the filibuster, since I arrived at the U.S. Senate,” Manchin said in a written statement.
“This threshold stabilizes our democracy, promotes bipartisan cooperation and protects our nation from partisan whiplash and dysfunction,” he continued. “I have always said: ‘If you can’t change your mind, you can’t change anything’ and I am hopeful that the vice president remains open to doing just that.”
Of course, even if Harris does win the presidency, there is no guarantee that she would do so with a majority in the Senate. As it stands now, she’s the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, but Democratic incumbents in two states, Montana and Ohio, are considered highly vulnerable, while the party is also defending seats in Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
On “Wisconsin Today” Harris emphasized that “while the presidential election is extremely important and dispositive of where we go moving forward,” this year’s election “also is about what we need to do to hold onto the Senate and win seats in the House.”
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue
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